The Iron King

“Will she die?” Ethan asked, and I glanced at him sharply. Though his eyes were huge and round, and tears brimmed in the corners, he sounded more curious than anything.

I wrenched my gaze away from my half brother. I had to get help. Luke was gone, so the only thing left would be to call for an ambulance. But, just as I stood to get the phone, Mom groaned, stirred, and opened her eyes.

My heart leaped. “Mom,” I said as she struggled into a sitting position, a dazed look on her face. “Don’t move. I’ll call 911.”

“Meghan?” Mom looked around, blinking. A hand came up to touch her cheek, and she stared at the blood on her fingers. “What happened? I … I must’ve fallen …”

“You hit your head,” I replied, standing up and looking around for the phone. “You might have a concussion. Hold on, I’m calling the ambulance.”

“The ambulance? No, no.” Mom sat up, looking a little clearer. “Don’t do that, honey. I’m fine. I’ll just clean up and put on a Band-Aid. There’s no need to go to that trouble.”

“But, Mom—”

“I’m fine, Meg.” Mom snatched the forgotten washrag and began wiping the blood off her face. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, but I’ll be fine. It’s only blood, nothing serious. Besides, we can’t afford a big doctor’s bill.” She abruptly straightened and looked around the room. “Where’s your brother?”

Startled, I looked back to the doorway, but Ethan was gone.

MOM’S PROTESTS WERE WASTED when Luke got home. He took one look at her pale, bandaged face, threw a fit, and insisted they go to the hospital. Luke can be stubbornly persistent when he needs to be, and Mom eventually buckled under the pressure. She was still calling out instructions to me—take care of Ethan, don’t let him stay up too late, there’s frozen pizza in the fridge—as Luke bundled her into his battered Ford and roared off down the driveway.

As the truck turned a corner and vanished from sight, the chilly silence descended on the house once more. I shivered, rubbing my arms, feeling it creep into the room and breathe down my neck. The house where I’d lived most of my life seemed unfamiliar and frightening, as if things lurked in the cupboards and around corners, waiting to grab me as I walked past. My gaze lingered on the crumpled remains of Floppy, strewn across the floor, and for some reason, it made me very sad and scared. No one in this house would rip up Ethan’s favorite stuffed animal. Something was very wrong.

Footsteps padded over the floor. I turned to find Ethan in the doorway, staring at me. He looked strange without the rabbit in his arms, and I wondered why he wasn’t upset about it.

“I’m hungry,” he announced, making me blink. “Cook me something, Meggie.”

I scowled at the demanding tone.

“It’s not dinnertime yet, squirt,” I told him, crossing my arms. “You can wait a couple hours.”

His eyes narrowed, and his lips curled back from his teeth. For just a moment, I imagined they were jagged and sharp. “I’m hungry now,” he growled, taking a step forward. Dread shot through me and I recoiled.

Almost immediately, his face smoothed out again, his eyes enormous and pleading. “Please, Meggie?” he whined.

“Please? I’m so hungry.” He pouted, and his voice turned menacing. “Mommy didn’t make me food, either.”

“All right, fine! If it’ll shut you up, fine.” The angry words erupted from fear, and from a hot embarrassment because I was afraid. Of Ethan. Of my stupid, four-year-old half brother. I didn’t know where these demonic mood swings of his were coming from, but I hoped they weren’t the start of a trend. Maybe he was just upset because of Mom’s accident. Maybe if I fed the brat, he’d fall asleep and leave me alone for the night. I stalked to the freezer, grabbed the pizza, and shoved it in the oven.

While the pizza cooked, I tried to clean up the puddle of vegetable oil in front of the refrigerator. I wondered how the stuff had ended up on the floor, especially when I found the empty bottle stuffed in the trash. I smelled like Crisco when I was done, and the floor still had a slick spot, but it was the best I could do.

The creak of the oven door startled me. I turned to see Ethan pulling it open and reaching inside.

“Ethan!” Grabbing his wrist, I yanked him back, ignoring his scream of protest. “What are you doing, you idiot? You want to burn yourself?”

“Hungry!”

“Sit down!” I snapped, plunking him into a dining chair. He actually tried to hit me, the little ingrate. I resisted the urge to smack him. “God, you’re being snotty today. Sit there and be quiet. I’ll get your food in a second.”

When the pizza came out, he fell on it like a wild thing, not waiting for it to cool. Astonished, I could only stare as he tore through the slices like a starved dog, barely stopping to chew as he gulped it down. Soon, his face and hands were smeared with sauce and cheese, and the pizza was rapidly diminished. In less than two minutes, he had consumed it all, down to the last crumb.

Ethan licked his hands, then raised his eyes to me and frowned. “Still hungry.”

“You are not,” I told him, snapping out of my daze. “If you eat anything else you’ll get sick. Go play in your room or something.”

He stared at me with a baleful expression, and it seemed that his skin grew darker, wrinkled, and shriveled beneath his baby fat. Without warning, he leaped off the chair, rushed me, and sank his teeth into my leg.

“Ow!” Pain lanced through my calf like an electrical shock. Grabbing his hair, I tried prying his teeth from my skin, but he clung to me like a leech and bit down harder. It felt like glass shards stabbing into my leg. Tears blurred my vision, and my knees almost buckled from the pain.

“Meghan!”

Robbie stood inside the front door, a backpack flung over his shoulder, his green eyes wide with shock.

Ethan released me, jerking his head toward the shout. Blood smeared his lips. Seeing Robbie, he hissed and—there’s no other way to put it—scuttled away from us and up the stairs, vanishing from sight.

I shook so hard I had to sit down on the couch. My leg throbbed, and my breath came in short, uneven gasps. Blood, bright and vivid, seeped through my jeans like an unfurling blossom. Dazed, I stared at it, numbness deadening my limbs, freezing them in shock.

Robbie crossed the room in three strides and knelt beside me. Briskly, as if he’d done this kind of thing before, he began rolling up the cuff of one pant leg.

“Robbie,” I whispered as he bent over his task, his long fingers surprisingly gentle. “What’s happening? Everything’s going crazy. Ethan just attacked me … like a wild dog.”

“That wasn’t your brother,” Robbie muttered as he pushed back the material, revealing a bloody mess below my knee. An oval of jagged puncture wounds marred my leg, seeping blood, and the skin around them was already purpling. Rob whistled softly. “Nasty. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Like I’m going anywhere,” I replied automatically, and then his previous statement sank in. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, that wasn’t Ethan? Who the hell else could it be?”

Rob ignored me. Walking to his backpack, he opened it and pulled out a long, green-tinted bottle and a tiny crystal cup. I frowned. Why was he going for champagne now? I was hurt, in pain, and my kid brother had turned into a monster. I was certainly not in the mood for celebrating.

With the utmost care, Robbie poured the champagne into the cup and walked back, being careful not to spill a single drop.

“Here,” he said, giving it to me. The cup sparkled in his hand. “Drink this. Where do you keep the towels?”

I took it suspiciously. “In the bathroom. Just don’t use Mom’s good white ones.” As Rob walked off, I peered into the tiny cup. There was barely enough for a swallow. It didn’t look like champagne to me. I was expecting something fizzy white or pink, sparkling in the glass. The liquid in the cup was a deep, dark red, the color of blood. A fine mist writhed and danced on the surface.

“What is this?”

Robbie, returning from the bathroom with a white towel, rolled his eyes. “Do you have to question everything? It will help you forget the pain. Just drink it already.”

I sniffed experimentally, expecting hints of roses or berries or some type of sweet scent mixed in with the alcohol.

It smelled of nothing. Nothing at all.

Oh, well. I raised the glass in a silent toast. “Happy birthday to me.”

The wine filled my mouth, flooding my senses. It tasted of nothing, and everything. It tasted of twilight and mist, moonlight and frost, emptiness and longing. The room swayed, and I fell back against the couch, it was so strong. Reality blurred at the edges, wrapping me in a fuzzy haze. I felt sick and sleepy all at once.

By the time my senses cleared, Robbie was tying a bandage around my leg. I didn’t remember him cleaning or dressing the wound. I felt numb and dazed, like a blanket had dropped over my thoughts, making it hard to concentrate.

“There,” Robbie said, straightening up. “That’s done. At least your leg won’t fall off.” His eyes swept up to mine, anxious and assessing. “How’re you feeling, princess?”

“Un,” I said intelligently, and tried to sweep the cobwebs from my brain. There was something I wasn’t remembering, something important. Why was Robbie binding my leg? Had I hurt myself somehow?

I bolted upright.

“Ethan bit me!” I exclaimed, indignant and furious all over again. I turned on Robbie. “And you … you said that wasn’t Ethan at all! What were you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Relax, princess.” Robbie tossed the bloody towel onto the floor and plopped onto a footstool. He sighed. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. My fault, I suppose. I shouldn’t have left you alone today.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You weren’t supposed to see this, any of this,” Robbie went on, to my utter confusion. He seemed to be talking more to himself than me. “Your Sight has always been strong, that was a given. Still, I didn’t expect them to go after your family, too. This changes things.”

“Rob, if you don’t tell me what’s going on—”

Robbie looked at me. His eyes gleamed, impish and feral.

“Tell you? Are you sure?” His voice went soft and dangerous, and goose bumps crawled up my arms. “Once you start seeing things, you won’t be able to stop. People have gone mad with too much knowledge.” He sighed, and the menace dropped from his eyes. “I don’t want that to happen to you, princess. It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. I can make you forget all of this.”

“Forget?”

He nodded and held up the wine bottle. “This is mistwine.

You just had a swallow. A cup will make everything go back to normal.” He balanced the bottle on two fingers, watching it sway back and forth. “One cup, and you’ll be normal again. Your brother’s behavior will not seem strange, and you won’t remember anything weird or scary. You know what they say—ignorance is bliss, right?”

Despite my uneasiness, I felt a slow flame of anger burning my chest. “So, you want me to drink that … that stuff, and just forget about Ethan. Just forget about my only brother. That’s what you’re saying.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, when you put it like that …”

The burning grew hot and furious, searing away the fear.

I clenched my fists. “Of course I won’t forget about Ethan!

He’s my brother! Are you really that inhuman, or just stupid?”

To my surprise, a grin spread over his face. He dropped the bottle, caught it, and put it on the floor. “The first,” he said, very softly.

That threw me. “What?”

“Inhuman.” He was still grinning at me, the smile stretching his whole mouth so that his teeth gleamed in the fading light. “I warned you, princess. I’m not like you. And now, neither is your brother.”

Despite the fear prickling my stomach, I leaned forward. “Ethan? What do you mean? What’s wrong with him?”

“That wasn’t Ethan.” Robbie leaned back, crossing his arms. “The thing that attacked you today is a changeling.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Puck

I stared at Robbie, wondering if this was another one of his stupid pranks. He sat there, observing me calmly, watching my reaction. Though he still wore a half grin, his eyes were hard and serious. He wasn’t joking around.

“Ch-changeling?” I finally stammered, looking at him like he was insane. “Isn’t that some kind of … of …”

“Faery,” Robbie finished for me. “A changeling is a faery offspring that has been switched with a human child. Usually, a troll’s or goblin’s, though the sidhe—the faery nobility—have been known to make the switch, as well. Your brother has been replaced. That thing is not Ethan, any more than I am.”

“You’re crazy,” I whispered. If I wasn’t sitting, I’d be backing away from him toward the door. “You’ve gone off the deep end. Time to cut back on the anime, Rob. There’s no such thing as faeries.”

Robbie sighed. “Really? That’s what you’re going with? How predictable.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I thought better of you, princess.”

“Thought better of me?” I cried, leaping off the couch.

“Listen to yourself! You really expect me to believe that my brother is some kind of pixie with glitter dust and butterfly wings?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Rob said mildly. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re thinking ‘Tinker Bell,’ which is a typical human response to the word faery. The real fey aren’t like that at all.” He paused a moment. “Well, except for the piskies, of course, but that’s a different story altogether.”

I shook my head, my thoughts spinning in several directions at once. “I can’t deal with this right now,” I muttered and staggered away from him. “I have to check on Ethan.”

Robbie only shrugged, leaned back against the wall, and put his hands behind his head. After one final glare at him, I rushed up the stairs and opened the door to Ethan’s bedroom.

It was a mess, a war zone of broken toys, books, and scattered clothes. I looked around for Ethan, but the room appeared empty, until I heard a faint scratching noise under his bed.

“Ethan?” Kneeling down, pushing away broken action figures and snapped Tinkertoys, I peered into the space between the mattress and the floor. In the shadows, I could just make out a small lump huddled in the corner with his back to me. He was trembling.

“Ethan,” I called softly. “Are you all right? Why don’t you come out a second? I’m not mad at you.” Well, that was a lie, but I was more shaken than angry. I wanted to drag Ethan downstairs and prove that he wasn’t a troll or a changeling or whatever Robbie said he was.

The lump stirred a little, and Ethan’s voice drifted out of the gap. “Is the scary man still here?” he asked in a small, frightened voice. I might’ve been sympathetic, if my calf wasn’t throbbing so much.

“No,” I lied. “He’s gone now. You can come out.” Ethan didn’t move, and my irritation sparked. “Ethan, this is ridiculous. Get out of there already, will you?” I stuck my head farther under the mattress and reached for him.

Ethan turned on me with a hiss, eyes burning yellow, and lunged at my arm. I jerked it back as his teeth, jaggedly pointed like a shark’s, snapped together with a horrid clicking sound. Ethan snarled, his skin the ghastly blue of a drowned infant’s, bared teeth shining in the darkness. I shrieked, scrabbling back, Lego blocks and Tinkertoys biting into my palms. Hitting the wall, I leaped to my feet, turned, and fled the room.

And ran smack into Robbie, standing outside the door.

He grabbed my shoulders as I screamed and started hitting him, barely conscious of what I was doing. He bore the attack wordlessly, simply holding me in place, until I collapsed against him and buried my head in his chest. And he held me as I sobbed out my fear and anger.

At last, the tears stopped, leaving me drained and utterly exhausted. I sniffed and backed away, wiping my eyes on my palm, shaking. Robbie still stood there quietly, his shirt damp with my tears. The door to Ethan’s bedroom was shut, but I could hear faint thumps and cackling laughter beyond the door.

I shivered, looking up at Robbie. “Ethan is really gone?”

I whispered. “He’s not just hiding somewhere? He’s really gone?”

Robbie nodded gravely. I looked at Ethan’s bedroom door and bit my lip. “Where is he now?”

“Probably in Faeryland.” Stated so simply, I almost laughed from the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Ethan had been stolen by faeries and replaced with an evil doppelgänger. Faeries kidnapped my brother. I was tempted to pinch myself to see if this was a twisted dream or hallucination. Maybe I had fallen into a drunken stupor on the couch. On impulse, I bit the inside of my cheek, hard. The sharp pain and taste of blood told me this was, indeed, real.

I looked to Robbie, and his grave expression banished the last of my doubts. A sick feeling rose to my stomach, making me nauseous and afraid.

“So.” I swallowed and forced myself to be calm. Okay, Ethan was kidnapped by faeries; I could deal with this. “What do we do now?”

Robbie raised one shoulder. “That’s up to you, princess. There are human families that have raised changelings as their own, though they are usually unaware of the child’s true nature. Generally speaking, if you feed it and leave it alone, it will settle into its new home without too much trouble. Changelings make a nuisance of themselves at first, but most families adapt.” Robbie grinned, but it was an attempt at lightheartedness rather than humor. “Hopefully, your folks will think he’s just going through a late terrible twos.”

“Robbie, that thing bit me, and probably made Mom slip and fall in the kitchen. It’s more than a nuisance, it’s dangerous.” I glared at Ethan’s closed door and shuddered. “I want it gone. I want my brother back. How do we get rid of it?”

Robbie sobered. “Well, there are ways of getting rid of changelings,” he began, looking uncomfortable. “One old method is to brew beer or cook stew in eggshells, and that will make the changeling comment on the weirdness of it. But that method was for infants who’d been switched—since the baby was too young to speak, the parents knew that the impostor was a changeling and the real parents had to take it back. I don’t think it’ll work for someone older, like your brother.”

“Great. What’s another way?”

“Er, the other way is to beat the changeling near to death, until the screams force the fey parents to return the real child. Barring that, you could stick him in the oven and cook him alive—”

“Stop.” I felt sick. “I can’t do any of those things, Robbie.

I just can’t. There has to be another way.”

“Well.” Rob looked hesitant and scratched the back of his neck. “The only other way is to travel into the faery lands and take him back. Bringing the real child into the home again will force the changeling to leave. But.” He paused, as if on the verge of saying something, only to think better of it.

“But what?”

“But … you don’t know who took your brother. And without that knowledge, you’ll just be walking in circles. And, if you’re wondering, walking in circles in Faeryland is a very, very bad idea.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know who took him,” I agreed, staring hard at Robbie, “but you do.”

Robbie shuffled nervously. “I have a guess.”

“Who?”

“It’s just a guess, mind you. I could be wrong. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

“Robbie!”

He sighed. “The Unseelie Court.”

“The what?”

“The Unseelie Court,” Robbie repeated. “The Court of Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness. Sworn enemies of King Oberon and Queen Titania. Very powerful. Very nasty.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” I held up my hands. “Oberon? Titania? Like from A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Aren’t those just ancient myths?”

“Ancient, yes,” Robbie said. “Myths, no. The faery lords are immortal. Those who have songs, ballads, and stories written about them never die. Belief, worship, imagination—we were born of the dreams and fears of mortals, and if we are remembered, even in some small way, we will always exist.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’“ I pointed out. “As though you’re one of those immortal faeries. As though you’re one of them.” Robbie smiled, a proud, impish smile, and I gulped. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Ah, well.” Robbie shrugged, trying to look modest and failing entirely. “If you’ve read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you might remember me. There was this unfortunate incident, completely unplanned, where I gave someone a donkey’s head and made Titania fall in love with him.”

I ran through the play in my mind. I’d read it in the seventh grade, but had forgotten most of the plot. There were so many characters, so many names to sift through, people falling in and out of love so often it was ridiculous. I remembered a few human names: Hermia, Helena, Demetrius. On the faery side, there was Oberon and Titania and …

“Shit,” I whispered, falling back against the wall. I stared at Robbie with new eyes. “Robbie Goodfell. Robin … you’re Robin Good fellow.”

Robbie grinned. “Call me Puck.”

PUCK. THE PUCK WAS STANDING in my hallway.

“No way,” I whispered, shaking my head. This was Robbie, my closest friend. I would’ve known if he was an ancient faery.

Wouldn’t I?

Frighteningly, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. I’d never seen Robbie’s house, or his parents. The teachers all loved him, though he never did a lick of school-work and slept through most of the classes. And strange things happened when he was around: mice and frogs ended up in desks, or names were switched around on term papers. Though Robbie Goodfell thought these scenarios absolutely hilarious, no one ever suspected him.

“No,” I muttered again, backing away toward my room.

“That’s impossible. Puck is a legend, a myth. I don’t believe it.”

Robbie gave me that eerie smile. “Then, princess, by all means, let me assure you.”

His arms rose from his sides, as if he might levitate into the air. From downstairs, I heard the front door creak open, and I hoped Mom and Luke weren’t home yet. Yeah, Mom, Ethan’s turned into a monster and my best friend thinks he’s a faery. How was your day?

An enormous black bird swooped into the hallway. I yelped and ducked as the raven, or crow or whatever it was, made a beeline straight for Robbie and perched on his arm. They watched me, the pair of them, with glittering eyes, and Robbie smiled.

A rush of wind, and suddenly, the air was filled with screaming black birds, swooping in from the open door. I gasped and ducked as the cloud of ravens filled the hallway, their raucous cries nearly deafening me. They swirled around Robbie, a tornado of beating wings and sharp claws, tearing at him with talons and beaks. Feathers flew everywhere, and Robbie disappeared within the swirling mass. Then, as one, the birds scattered, flying out the open door as swiftly as they had come. As the last bird swooped outside, the door slammed behind it, and silence descended once more. I caught my breath and glanced at Rob.